


Overs-verse, Arus

by Todesengel



Series: Overs-verse [7]
Category: Voltron: Lion Voltron
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-30
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesengel/pseuds/Todesengel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets set in the time frame of the VF's time on Arus</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Joshua

They never talk about Joshua, and to be honest Will doesn't remember much about his brother, just that after he was gone Mom cried a lot and Dad was home a lot more than he used to be and there'd be yelling sometimes, and that, six months later, when they moved into their new home, they didn't have a park right across the street. He doesn't exactly _forget_ about Joshua, because of course Mom lights incense for him and she always stops and prays and builds a little pile of stones any time they see a Jizo statue, but it's not like he spends a lot of time thinking about the fact that, from age four to five, he had a little brother, and then from age five to eight he didn't – at least, not until it's been six months since anybody's heard _anything_ from Keith, and he finds his Mom – his _Mom_ , who's the strongest person he knows – standing in the kitchen and making dinner and crying hot, silent tears into the stew.

"Mom?" he says softly and she wipes his eyes and tries to smile at him and it does nothing to stop the quiet, controlled panic going on in his stomach.

"I'm fine, sweetie," she says and wipes her eyes again. "It's just the onions."

Will nods but doesn't say anything, because he's five years old again and his brother is gone and he doesn't know what to do.


	2. Mary and Henry

While it was true that she hadn't done this in a long time – too much time playing the Ambassador's Wife and indulging in her own quiet sin of prying into lives led by those long dead – there were certain skills from her younger days that Mary had kept up and although she was sure she'd be caught in a second if she tried stealing state secrets from a politely hostile ally breaking into Henry's office was almost like breaking into her own home.

Henry's back was to the door, and the part of her brain that wasn't filled with anger born from a millennia of hardwired biological instincts managed to feel a little smug about the fact that here she was, closer to sixty than forty, and she still managed to sneak up on the greatest spy alive.

"What did you do with my son, you son of a bitch," she said into his ear and pressed the little gun she hadn't used since the day she found out she was pregnant with Will hard against Henry's back.

"He's alive," Henry said, and when he turned around and looked at her with sad, sorrowful eyes she almost shot him right then and there because how _dare_ he?

"And?"

"And that's all I can tell you. I'm sorry."

"I should kill you."

"Yes, you probably should, but right now I'm the only one who knows where your son is and I'm the only one who can bring him home."

"Bastard," she spat, and all of the anger and despair she'd managed to hide from John and the kids burst through her walls because she was helpless and she knew it and she hated it, and all she wanted to do was scream and howl and cry but she wouldn't, not in front of this man – this monster who used to be her friend – so instead she tightened her grip and blinked away the few tears that threatened to fall and hissed, "how could you? How _could_ you?"

"Mary, how could I _not_?" he said, and to her horror the cold, analytical part of her mind agreed with him, and all the thoughts she had never let herself think flashed through her head and she would have done the same as Henry had she been in his place, but she wasn't and Keith was her _son_.

"You've been _planning_ this," she said. "All this time, all these years – _this_ is why you took such an interest in my children, isn't it."

"No! I swear to God, Mary, I didn't want this to happen, I never – I hoped and prayed and. But we _need_ him, and I can't – I _won't_ – let anything keep me from using any means necessary to make sure that we don't get our asses kicked from here to the outer rim."

"If it was your son," she said, suddenly so tired because she'd known everything Henry had said before he'd said it and it made sense and she hated that, hated the logic that made it okay for her son to be gone.

"It is my son," he said, and it didn't make Mary feel any better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After writing this, I realized I should've made something clearer, to whit that line Henry says about it being his son too. That line is not to imply Mary and Henry had an affair and Keith really is Henry's son -- rather that Henry views Keith as his son because he was so involved in Keith's life.


	3. Ann and Will during Keith's absense

"I wish I'd been nicer to him," Anna said and Will said, "So be nicer to him when he comes back."

Anna stared at him – calm and cool like their baby brother was just on some extended mission and not dead.

"When did you become the optimist of the family?" she said at last.

"Look, the G.G. have him listed as 'MIA', not 'KIA' and so it just means they've . . . misplaced him for a bit, not that he's dead. And Keith was always really good at hiding, remember?"

"'MIA' just means they haven't found his body yet."

Will took a long sip of beer and shook his head. "No. Nuh-uh. I'm not buying that. He can't be dead. He owes me money."

"God, must you turn _everything_ into a joke?"

"What would you rather I be doing? Freaking out? Wishing for useless things?" Will leaned forward and Anna could see his anger in the way he narrowed his eyes. "Look, Keith is a survivor, and he's a stubborn bastard, and I'm not going to believe he's dead until his body's been produced and even then not until he's been in the ground for at least a year. Besides," he said as he sat back. "I'd know if he was dead."

"Yeah? How do you figure that?"

"I'm a big brother. We just know these kinds of things."

"Liar," Anna said, but despite herself she felt a little comforted.


	4. Hunk's cookies

Hunk made chocolate chip cookies and Keith couldn't help himself, it was a Pavlovian response: the smell of chocolate and sugar and spices had been hardwired to his libido when he was eighteen and the fact that he was thirty now in no way diminished the strength of that remembered teenage lust. Still, everything would've been just fine if Lance hadn't been sitting across the table from him. Even then, it probably would have been all right, except for the fact that Lance was intimately aware of what Keith looked like when he got an erection, and he'd had to repeat Basic Diplomacy three times.

"Dude, are you hard?" Lance said.

"Shut up," Keith muttered, and he wished that he could stop blushing because it really ruined the glare he was trying to give Lance. "Shut up, shut up, shut up."

"Dude! You've got wood!"

"I will kill you," he said. "I will kill you dead, and then I will kill you some more."

"Cookies, huh?" Lance said, grinning – and not his nice grin, either, but the one that Keith knew all too well, the one that foretold months of mocking – and Keith groaned and leaned forward until his head touched the table.

"I wish I was dead," he said.


	5. Snorri's birth, Keith age 31

Sven's son was born on a dirt floor in a hut in a swamp in the middle of nowhere on a planet in the middle of a nebula that wasn't on anybody's star charts and Keith knew about the birth exactly twelve hours after it happened, because that was when Sven called, and even though the picture was kind of grainy and washed out because of the twenty-three relays it had to go through to make sure nobody could trace the signal, Keith could tell Sven was happy.

"His name is Snorri," Sven said and behind him Romelle shouted, "His name is _not_ Snorri! You lost the coin toss, my friend!"

Sven rolled his eyes, giddy and grinning and in love, and said, "Okay, okay. His name is Marcus Aquila, and he's small and red and beautiful and a screamer and he's not safe here. Can I send him to you?"

"I still think this is your dirty, underhanded way of getting out of changing diapers," Romelle said and Keith laughed and said, "Yeah man, whatever you need."

What Sven needed, it turned out, was Lance for ten months, which wasn't exactly what Keith had in mind when he'd made that rather rash and foolish promise.


End file.
